Sys-Con brings up an interesting topic about the risks of over-virtualization. The article explains the differences between Standard Virtualization Environments and Para-Virtualization Environments, and it then goes into detail about how these two classes of virtualization are becoming blurred.
Now there's a third class of virtualization type coming, and that's virtualized hardware. In this scenario, a hardware card itself is expecting to be driven simultaneously by multiple virtualized operating systems. The virtualization software merely presents the virtualized device instances to the operating system to be driven by the device driver provided by the operating system (although the native device driver usually has to be enhanced to understand the hardware virtualization). This kind of hardware virtualization promises to blur the distinction between Standard and Para-virtualization in the field. Even for hardware that might not be thought of as natively virtualized, the major processor makers are adding virtualization technologies to their chipsets (Intel with its VT architecture and AMD with Pacifica), which promises to erase the Standard vs Para distinction altogether.
The article discusses the future of virtualization by comparing it to the past - the use of mainframes.
Check out the full article,
here.